Feeds
by Potterworm
Summary: Emma and Spinner are married for three months before her eating disorder comes up. Even after all this time, she's not sure how to articulate it. (How do you forget how to eat? How do you remember?)


**Feeds**

**Summary: **Emma and Spinner are married for three months before her eating disorder comes up. Even after all this time, she's not sure how to articulate it.

i.

It feels like a long time ago that she had a panic attack in the basement of her house, desperately throwing Manny's possessions on the floor. But three months and four days into her marriage with Spinner, they have eaten fast food every day for a week, and she is fat, and she is fat, and she is fat.

She stares in the mirror of their crappy apartment, running her hand over her belly – and wonders when she got a _belly._

He walks into the bedroom, says, "Hey, babe. Sorry I'm late. Cindy-" one of the Dot waitresses – "called off sick. Wanna eat leftover pizza for dinner? Or did you eat already?"

The lie slips off her tongue before she can even breathe. "I already ate."

ii.

Two weeks later, they are at a party at Manny's. Emma is only picking at the salad on her plate, and Manny is looking concerned, and Emma can't breathe for a moment. "Emma, you okay?" Manny murmurs.

"Yeah, Manny," she says, planting a smile on her face.

Spinner and she may not have been married long, but he knows her fake smile. "Babe?"

She ignores him, while Manny whispers to her, "'cause I don't mean to seem weird, but your face seems super thin."

"Manny," she says and her face tightens with indignation. "I'm _fine." _And it sounds like hiding French fries in her jacket pocket to avoid eating the picnic Peter packed her, and it sounds like throwing up pizza in the high school bathroom, and it sounds like three weeks of group therapy and daily weigh-ins, and it sounds like anything but fine.

"Babe?" Spinner says again, his face smiling but his eyes concerned.

Manny flashes him a _Manuela _smile and says, "Nothing to be concerned about, Spinner boy. Just making sure my darling Emma is keeping her weight up."

Emma's eyes go wide with anxiety for a split second before she schools her expression.

Spinner: "What?" He turns to Emma. "What is she talking about?"

Their meals are completely forgotten. The party has faded into the background. It is just this moment, this moment, this moment. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

"Nothing, Spin. Manny's just being silly." Emma wonders if her face really looks thinner.

He drops it then, at the party with all of their friends, but hours later, that night in bed, he brings it up again. "You know, this marriage thing kind of relies on us being honest."

"Excuse me?" she says, and now she's a little bit offended, because _yeah, _she may have lied, but it's not like it was a big lie. It's not like it was an easy thing to talk about.

"Did you, like, crash diet in high school or something?" Spinner asks. "'cause I know girls in my grade who did that, and like, that's not healthy. And you know you look really pretty, so it's not like you need to do that."

Emma bites her lip. "Or something," she says, her voice low and quiet with sleep. She wonders if she didn't look pretty, if she would 'need to do that.'

Spinner asks, "What does _that _mean?" but Emma pretends to have fallen asleep.

He doesn't mention it in the morning.

iii.

Her stupid dress doesn't fit. She has gained so much fucking weight in the last month that she actually kind of wants to die for a second. She has to go to this fucking party with Spinner, and she can't – _she jumps up and down, fiddling with the zipper_ – get into – _she sucks in her stomach_ – this dress.

Emma lets out a scream of frustration as Spinner happens to walk in the room. "Whoa – Em?"

She knows this is dumb. It's not the first time she's felt fat – even pre-anorexia, she had problems with this. But she can't wear this dress, and she can't go to a party with his family and friends who don't even know who she is, who are all judging their stupid marriage and her lack of job and their stupid life. "I'm sorry," she says, and to her horror, she feels tears welling up in her eyes. "This fucking dress just won't fit, and I don't know what to do."

"Hey, hey," he says, soothing her like a startled animal. "It's just a dress."

She knows it's just a dress. She _knows _this. But it feels so much bigger, and suddenly she is bawling in their bedroom, and they are ten minutes late to this party already, and she is crying and she is crying and she is crying. "I'm just so _fat _lately, and I can't seem to stop gaining weight."

"Hey, Emma, you're not _fat_, so like, don't worry about that. You're like, under 120 pounds. Don't be crazy," he says. And she knows it's meant to be reassuring, but that word – that "crazy" word – it kills her. Because after she came back from the hospital, it got whispered in the hallways of Degrassi for months. There goes the crazy girl who forgot how to eat. How do you forget how to eat?

(How do you remember?)

She sighs and says, "I don't know, maybe it's just my period," because she knows that'll get him to stop talking about it. He leaves and lets her clean up her makeup and find a different dress to wear.

iv.

She starts working out the next day, instead of looking for a job. She's not going to find one anyway, so why does it even matter?

v.

Emma knows what the word "relapse" means, and she knows it's weird she's never had one. Lying on their bathroom floor, thinking about the cake she ate after running four miles that morning though – she comes closer than she'd like. She prays, but whether it's for the courage to purge or the courage not to, she's not sure.

Their bathroom rug feels nice in between her toes.

vi.

She hasn't been to see her mom or Spike in weeks. She knows they would notice.

vii.

Maybe it's the sex that makes him notice – because she's certainly not showing a lot of skin the rest of the time - but Spinner notices that she's lost some weight. "Hey, Emma, grab a plate will you?" he says. He's contrived some homemade dinner excuse, and she's been here before, and she recognizes that tree.

"Oh, I'm not hungry, babe," she says. She ran seven miles that morning, and she wanted to go for another run tonight. Night running was the most freeing, when no one really saw you.

"Oh, come on, Emma. I made your favorite. Vegetarian lasagna. It took forever."

She stands from the couch and sashays her way over to him. She likes that he looks at her hips while she walks. This is just like Peter. She can manipulate him, she knows. She kisses him – hard. His back hits the counter. "And I appreciate it. But I'm not hungry now. Save me a plate for later."

But Spinner is not a sixteen year old. He's a grown man, and he can spot her lie. "Later? You said that the last five nights."

"I wasn't hungry the last five nights," she blurts, and then cringes, because that sounds like a lie a ten year old would tell.

"Are you, like, on a diet?" he says. "Because that's crazy babe, and with what Manny said about you dieting in high school, like, maybe it's not a good idea." He looks at her – so concerned – and the love he's showing almost makes her sick.

"High school? What do you know about me in high school? You never even talked to me. You don't even know me!" The lasagna smells so good that she could vomit. She can't remember the last full meal she ate.

"What?" he says, stunned for a moment, as though she had punched him in the gut. "What does that have to do with anything? You're mad at me for not knowing you when we were kids?"

She shoves him, and he hits the counter. "No, I'm mad at you for acting like high school's the most important thing. If it was, then we wouldn't even be married. We didn't even know each other then; I never even talked to you! If you think high school's so important, then go be married to _Jane!_" she spits.

"Whoa- just because I'm worried about you doesn't mean you get to be a bitch to me. What the hell is this even about?" and she thinks she has him distracted, but again, he is a grown man, not a scared little boy. "Are you seriously so worried about being skinny that you're going to fight with me about it? What the hell kind of diet is this?"

"Diet, diet, diet!" she yells, turning around. He spins her back to face him. "I didn't diet in high school, Spinner! I almost died in high school. I was anorexic, and you're acting like I was some stupid girl trying to fit into her bikini."

She expects him to scream back, but their fight is over. His shoulders have eased, and his face has gone slack. "Anorexic? Are you okay?"

Fighting is hard work, but stopping fighting is even harder. She doesn't have a job, and she barely sees her friends, and she feels like everyone is ashamed of her for this marriage – when really Spinner is the only thing that makes her happy anymore. "I – I don't know." Tears are streaming down Emma's face now, and she doesn't know how long they have been.

He hugs her and leads her to their bed. She cries into his arms – her _husband's _arms.

viii.

That night, he brings her dinner in bed. She forces herself to choke the food down, while she tries to explain anorexia to someone for the first time in years. "It's like – the disorder – it just feeds on you. Sure, you get control for a little while, but with every lie, it takes away your friends and your family, and it ends up controlling you."

"I just don't understand why you stopped eating now."

She doesn't want him to feel bad, so she tries to articulate it. "It's so hard being here, with you, and I _love you, _but this marriage, this wasn't planned. And it just felt like everything was spiraling out of control. And looking at myself in the mirror, I gained _so much _weight that I just wanted to die. And so I thought I could fix it."

"Fix it? You're _perfect, _Emma," he says.

"No," she says. "I'm not perfect. And I think that's the problem. I'm always trying to be."

They talk for hours more, and she tells him the good and the bad of high school, and he tells her about Jane and cancer and Jimmy and the prank.

She has never felt closer to him.


End file.
